


breaking the cycle

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:26:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2528927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There really IS no good reason for Orsino to let Quentin go on that far in canon, except to give us reason to willingly demonise (hurr) him. So... how about this, instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	breaking the cycle

He doesn’t alert anyone when it all falls into place.

Heart heavy, he places his hands on top of the pile of letters, papers creased and smudged from folding and unfolding, fading ink sketching out oversentimental details and cagey questions…

The most recent letter had smelled of lilies.

Quentin had a way of tugging at the heartstrings, a poetry to his grief that Orsino, once a solo singer in the Chantry’s choir, had drunk in and relished. They’d fed each other — Orsino remembered his own exquisite sorrows and silently indulged them under pretense of being a listening ear, and in return he provided Quentin with information.

Because surely, information about magical technique was less dangerous than the sweetness of the black abyss, spiced wine and letters read by lamplight, imagining how Quentin must _suffer,_ imagining the delicate poignancy of his grief—

"You seem preoccupied," Ser Thrask comments, uneasily, it seems. Orsino blinks, shrugs irritably, pushes away from the edge of the deck. The boat rocks lazily under them, not too far from the Lowtown docks.

"I am." He offers no further information to the templar, one of the few the first enchanter trusted. He couldn’t have left the Circle without armoured accompaniment, as much as he would have preferred to…

"This is going to be difficult to report without giving you away, First Enchanter." Thrask casts him an expectant look. _Give me something, or why should I even try?_

Orsino doesn’t answer, as Lowtown looms before them.  
The templar would find out all he needed to know soon enough.

—

The foundry in which Quentin was holed up wasn’t difficult to find. As acquainted as Orsino was with blood by then, a trail of it seemed like a glowing path straight to his quarry.

"I’ve got a bad feel—"

"There is no need for gut feelings, Thrask," Orsino interrupts testily, shoving open the foundry door, which gives with a protesting squeal of rusty hinges and warped metal. "This _is_ bad. Keep your sword at the ready.”

A woman’s pleading, thick with tears and terror, grows louder and louder as the mage and the templar dart through the darkened halls, their skin alive with apprehension.  
Anger lights up Orsino’s blood. Not anger at Quentin, but at himself, for being so wilfully blind that he’d put lives in danger.

Maybe Meredith is right about him, and by extension, about them all.

—

"Stop!" and Quentin freezes, knife in hand and upraised.  
The woman cowers in the corner; there is an overturned cot and scattered instruments to one side. The acrid smell of lyrium burns Orsino’s nostrils, but that is nothing compared to the underlying stench of blood, old and new.

Quentin stares down the staff pointed at him, ignoring the templar and his glinting sword completely.

"And so the pot comes to destroy the kettle," he says, with a grim smile.

—

 _Leandra Amell,_ she tells him, _er, Hawke. I believe you know my son._

Elijah Hawke is already running down the steps into Lowtown, fury making maelstroms out of his dark eyes, tailed closely by the strangely-tattooed elf and an older gentleman that resembled Leandra.  
He pulls up short when he sees Orsino, and Thrask behind him, carrying Leandra.

"Mother? What are you doing with _him?”_ It isn’t the templar that Elijah mistrusts, Orsino knows.

"She’s been hurt, but it’s nothing a healer cannot fix," Orsino responds anyway, thinking of the apostate that sometimes kept company with the warrior.

"Did you have something to do with this?" Fury makes daggers of Eli’s voice.

"Yes," the first enchanter responds, his voice heavy with regret, and though they all wait for him to explain himself, to make excuses or amendments, he only turns to Thrask and asks to be taken back to the knight-commander.

—

Orsino does not see the outside of the Circle again for a long time.

But Leandra Amell, _er, Hawke,_ makes the journey to bring him gifts, tokens of her appreciation.

Well, in time. The first time, she brings him a single white lily.


End file.
